God Forbid ,If you get a letter in the mail from Canada Immigration advising you that your application for Canadian immigration was refused, do not panic! You have options.

You may be eligible to Appeal your Canadian Immigration Application Refusal to the Federal Court of Canada within a certain period after you were notified of the refusal by Canada Immigration. You may be eligible to Appeal your Canadian Immigration Application Refusal to the Immigration Adjudication Division (IAD) within a certain period of after your application was refused by Canada Immigration. You may be able to make a request for Restoration to the Case Processing Centre (CPC) after being notified if the refusal.

Which option is right for you:

It depends on a number of factors such as the nature of the case. Is it a Skilled Worker Application, Canadian Sponsorship Application or Canadian Work Visa refusal?

And it also depends on where the Canadian immigration application was filed and processed. Was your Canadian immigration application filed within Canada or at a Canadian Consulate or Embassy outside of Canada?Why did my Canadian Immigration Application get Refused?

Generally refusals for Canadian immigration applications do not just happen. When applications for Canadian immigration are submitted to Canada immigration, an immigration officer is responsible for reviewing the application and making an assessment about whether the application should be approved or denied. The immigration officer has guidelines for making decisions on immigration cases. These guidelines are found in the Immigration Regulations as well as Immigration Manuals.

When applications do not meet the various standards and criteria set out in the Immigration Regulations and Manuals, then the likely result is a refusal. However, in many cases, Canadian immigration officers make mistakes in their decisions. They often are too strict in their interpretation of the guidelines or they simply fail to review all the documentation and information in an application. Sometimes applicants are called for a personal interview and the immigration officer does not believe the applicant is credible or trustworthy.

Whatever the reason for the refusal, it is important to act very quickly once you are notified that your case was denied. You should then seek out a qualified and experienced Canadian immigration lawyer who is licensed. If your case has merit, then an Immigration Appeal should be consideresourcehttp://www.visaplace.com/canada-immigration/immigration-refusal.php

Canadian Immigration Application Refusal

It can be devastating to learn that your application to reside in Canada has been refused.

Fortunately, you may have recourse. A Canada immigration officer's decision to refuse an application may be challenged if that decision was wrong in fact or in law, or if that decision is not in accordance with the principles of procedural fairness.

Family Class sponsors have an additional recourse. They can ask that a refusal be reversed by raising humanitarian and compassionate considerations.

You may retain our law firm to provide you with a detailed analysis of the refusal decision. We will also advise you as to which remedies may be available to reverse the refusal decision.

If warranted in your particular situation, we can do the following:

Reconsideration letters– If the refusal was based on an error in fact or in law, and/or if that decision was not in accordance with the principles of procedural fairness, write to the Program Manager of the Canadian Visa Office to point out the errors and to request a reconsideration of the refusal decision;

Appeal – Wrongful refusals may, in certain instances, be appealed to the Federal Court of Canada or to the appropriate provincial court or, in the case of family sponsorships, to the Immigration Appeal Division.

The formal place that immigration appeals are made is the Federal Court of Canada. Most people choose to be represented by a lawyer at Federal Court.

The Federal Court is a court that has judges who are lawyers. Federal Court is strict, formal and has more complicated procedures. Federal Court involves a two step process. The first step is to file an appeal to get leave which is done by arguing your case by filing documents with no actual appearance at the Federal Court. In order to get leave to appeal you must prove there was a serious mistake made by the visa officer at the interview. If you succeed and get leave, you get the permission of the Federal court to go to step two which is the actual appearance at Federal Court in person to argue the case.

A typical case would be a skilled worker or business (investor, entrepreneur, self-employed) immigration applicant who goes to the interview at the Canadian Consulate or Embassy overseas, meets with a visa officer and fails the interview. The visa officer will issue a rejection letter setting out the reasons for the rejection. The applicant has a limited number of days (60) to respond and file a notice to commence a court action to appeal the case. If you miss the deadline generally you are not able to file an appeal. There are certain special circumstances and legal arguments that can be made that will allow you to continue even if you miss the deadline.

The general procedure for a Federal Court appeal is after the applicant files the Notice to start the action, the Respondent who is Citizenship and Immigration Canada (“CIC”) files an appearance confirming they will oppose the appeal. The applicant receives a copy of the visa officer's files containing documents filed and most importantly a copy of the interview notes made by the visa officer that have been inputted into the government computer. After a review of this material the applicant will file an applicant's court record containing the written argument, photocopies of legal cases and law supporting the argument and the applicant's affidavit that is a written document telling the applicant's story.

The respondent CIC is represented by the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and they file their argument. The applicant has a chance to respond to the points made by the respondent in the respondent's argument.

If leave is granted the Applicant gets to go to Federal Court to actually argue the case in person. This usually takes approximately 12-18 months from the date of commencing to appeal to get to Federal Court to argue the case in person. If no leave is granted the appeal is ended.

If you fail at Federal Court, you can also appeal to Federal Court of Appeal. If you fail at Federal Court of Appeal, you can also appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. For both Federal Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Canada you first must get leave to appeal.

The respondent CIC is represented by the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and they file their argument.

In every case I've ever looked at in the docket system (several dozen,) the response is entered at the due date. In my own case, today I saw a letter from a named attorney at Justice Canada entered into the docket system: "Letter from the respondent, <attorney name> dated 13-MAR-2012 <attorney name> assumed carriage of this immigration leave application received on 14-MAR-2012". I went back and looked at about two dozen cases and in none of them can I ever find a named attorney entering appearance on a judicial review application. Further, doing a bit of searching for the named attorney indicates that the attorney has quite a track record of showing up in a broad range of cases, including appellate cases. I even found a public legal roundtable discussion on my specific type of immigration denial (medical inadmissibility) in which this attorney took part last year.

I'm curious if you (or anyone else) has seen something like this in the past. Perhaps I'm fooling myself, but I'd like to think it is because the government is taking the arguments that we've presented seriously.

If leave is granted the Applicant gets to go to Federal Court to actually argue the case in person. This usually takes approximately 12-18 months from the date of commencing to appeal to get to Federal Court to argue the case in person. If no leave is granted the appeal is ended.

This surprised me. In reviewing the general timelines, it seems from my own observations that it usually takes about 6 months from the initial request to the time the Court either grants or refuses leave. In those few cases where leave is granted, they seem to schedule it out about 3-4 months (I'm told that courtroom availability is often an issue here, although I wouldn't be surprised if judge availability is also an issue.) So it seems that generally the cases I've studied are usually decided in under a year, although I will admit that I've focused on FSW cases.

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If you fail at Federal Court, you can also appeal to Federal Court of Appeal. If you fail at Federal Court of Appeal, you can also appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. For both Federal Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Canada you first must get leave to appeal.

Presumably if you succeed at Federal Court, you may be forced to defend that success in the FCA (in other words, if the government challenges the FC decision.) I'm assuming the basis of appeal (in either case) is restricted to the certified question?